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CULTURE | Noah Brier

Open Creative Communities and the Death of Zero Sum

Two different ideas. One post.

February 28, 2007 | RSS | EMAIL | PRINT | 6 COMMENTS

Over the last two days I've read two things that have really wowed me. Both take things I've thought a lot about over the last six months and really push and articulate them far better than I have.

Open Creative Communities

When Piers and I started likemind we didn't know what it would become. We never explained what it meant to be of 'likemind', yet 15 wonderful people showed up. Since then it's blossomed and spread around the world.

Over the last six months I've thought a lot about why we've gotten such an amazing response. I have a few theories, but reading "what is an Open Creative Community?" by Mark Kuznicki opened my eyes in some new ways. He defines these communities by "interest, practice, proximity and values," going on to explain:

These communities live in a hybrid virtual- and place-based geography. They are hyper-creative and produce some phenomenal artifacts of human ingenuity and culture. They are open, in that the barrier to entry is not a membership fee or a geographic line in the sand or a common ethnicity. The barrier to entry is creative citizenship, and you are either a citizen and a participant or you are not, based on your individual relationship to that community’s interests, practices, proximity and values.

After I read that I was hooked. Especially the last bit, "you are either a citizen and a participant or you are not." The beauty of likemind is that showing up makes you both an active participant and citizen. In the online world, the 1% rule applies: 99% of your users will not be highly active participants. In open creative communities, the opposite is true. By their very design it's impossible not to participate. In some ways a community like likemind both lowers and raises the barriers to entry by forcing people to self select.

Anyhow, before I go on forever about the article, go read it and tell me what you think.

Death of Zero Sum

Since I went a little long on the first half of this I'll try to get to the point on this one.

About four months ago I wrote about the relationship between binary code and the rise of ambiguity. Basically what I was getting at is that we live in a much more blurry world and I have trouble understanding how the binary code that sits at the bottom of all digital technology allows for that.

Grant McCracken has brought these idea back to the surface for me with his piece on "Beauty and the death of zero sum". In it he uses the Dove Real Beauty campaign (which you can read all about in the comments of my latest entry) to show how "in every domain of taste, we are seeing a willingness to expand the tools of judgment and the size of the winner's circle." (Just for reference, zero sum means "a participant's gain or loss is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the other participant(s).")

Grant writes:

Zero sum is dying in our culture. The notion that there is one single hierarchy of any kind is now in question. . . . The death of zero sum is especially evident on the internet where it turns out crowds matter more than elites. The new media emerge and they create a multiplication of value, a new superfluidity of admiration. This may be because people are prepared to "pay themselves" in admiration they do not deserve...but if it works, it works. There is nothing in the anthropological rule book that says that a culture may not make every individual an arbiter of his or her own value.

The internet and digital technology are driving a lot of these changes, but they are slowly seeping into the rest of culture. The web has redefined choice, offering us millions of results for each google search. The fascinating thing about those results, however, is that it's often not the first that you find most useful. Rather, it's some combination of many that gives you a final conclusion.

It was only a matter of time until that thinking began to invade the other parts of life.

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COMMENTS

1barbara

Both of these concepts really strike a chord with me relative to the future of public school education, which is just so profoundly anchored in the zero sum equation. I spent yesterday morning in a meeting with teachers and administrators, discussing the impact of a very expensive professional development program which, in the final analysis, offers little more than some helpful strategies for engaging students. I walked away with that 'moving the deck chairs on the Titanic' feeling. If the ship is sinking, it just doesn't matter how good the service on board is.

In the next decade or two, I think we're going to see a substantial rise in creative home-schooling communities -- groups of likeminded parents who are fed up with the hierarchical structure and stale formula of traditional schools, but still need a place for their children to go, so they can go to work. I think they'll find some space, research and develop curriculum based on online resources, and either hire capable, child-friendly supervisors/facilitators (I'm leaning toward social-worker types here, as I've said before), or share that responsibility among themselves.

At this point, the only real value the traditional classroom holds is the interpersonal one; kids need to learn to co-exist, cooperate, collaborate, et.al. But it is increasingly clear that technology trumps any single teacher in its ability to personalize instruction and address differing learning levels and styles. These are imperatives at the elementary level if we want kids to enjoy learning and ultimately, take responsibility for their own.

This turned into a little bit of a rant -- sorry -- but you really hit a nerve -- and I really need a community on this one!

February 28, 2007

2Bonnie in Albuquerque

For barbara- check out the family school in albuquerque http://www.apsfamilyschool.org/
A very innovative approach to home schooling. I know students that thrive there and others who need more structure....I am getting my Phd in education and feel the same dissatisfaction and helplessness...

Noah I like the article about the open community. I often think about this concept in a global sense. I work for an OD development trainer and we are finishing a book on matrix managment which is a global team that lacks a "community" feeling in many senses and I think this idea could help these matrix teams function better instead of being so inadequate. I also thought of how the idea of a community could apply to my research. When international educational policies are implemented from a top-down approach it is not allowing for a community to form. Policy is creating artificial groups that are not natural nor open. People are not being allowed to collaborate and create dialogue when the policy makers come in and implement their ideas. If schools in developing nations were allowed to develop their own creative communities that found their own ways to work within the program (unfortunately these countries are so in debt and have to participate in these educational programs) then they could develop new methods and curriculum that would reflect the natural community. With technology, people could communicate with other schools and educators in similar situations. This would allow ideas to be exchanged and create an open community of learners and teachers. If orgranizations like UNESCO, where I do my research, would listen to these communities then maybe educational policy programs would be more successful at the local level.
I don't know why this entry has inspired 2 education related posts...,,,maybe the 3rd one will bring another angle to this :)

February 28, 2007

3harris

3rd education post:

With the cost of private schools being so high, I've been tossing around the thought of getting together with parents of 9 other children and hiring a teacher. If everyone put in $10k per child, $100k would be available for the teacher, supplies, misc. costs, etc. The "classes" would be given at the parent's homes, on some pre-agreed, rotating schedule. This should provide an even greater commitment to the "school."

The teacher would be making more than they would in an usual school. The student:teacher ratio would be better than in an usual school.

February 28, 2007

4barbara

Go for it Harris! Just make sure you check your state's requirements for home schooling. In CT they're minimal, but I haven't checked elsewhere. I'd do some homework in advance -- among other things, make sure that the educational philosophies of the parents in your group and the teacher you hire are compatible. But I think there's great potential in it -- and more and more parents who are going the homeschooling route.

February 28, 2007

5KG

The notion of open creative communities is amazing. It's like word-of-mouth on psychic overdrive.

Is this the new zeitgeist? How will these communities spread?

It seems like wired/tech-connected creative communities are really living this concept. For those who are not tapped into technology, however, how will they take part in the opportunities possible?

Getting those $100 laptops into more hands worldwide should accelerate it.

March 2, 2007

6Charles

Great post, Noah. Both of these ideas remind me of why I love living in New York City. To me it's the ultimate threshold of where technology and culture meet. It IS the "hybrid virtual- and place-based geography" that Kuznicki speaks of.

By having a blog, taking & sharing photos, buying products, commuting on the subways, and working at an office, I find myself contributing in several different networks that can be separate from one another. Open Creative Communities such as likemind are different. The lack of a "line in the sand" as Grant writes allows me to bring everything I do to the table. Here, all my separate networks are relevant and potentially powerful. By aggregating and collecting people instead of pre-defined discussions or topics, you've been able to see the bigger picture - perhaps in the same way that you can gain a greater perspective by looking at all those search results.

March 5, 2007